Back in May, “Amar Pelos Dois” gave Portugal its first ever Eurovision win, while Moldova’s “Hey Mamma” finished in a very respectable third place. But two months later, it’s the SunStroke Project’s party tune that’s the YouTube hit. The grand final performance of “Hey Mamma” now has more views than “Amar Pelos Dois”.

Since Salvador Sobral’s victory in May, the video of his grand final performance has been the most popular of all the 2017 grand final videos. It’s held a comfortable lead, and fans have revisited the simple yet touching performance.

But challenging it for the lead is Epic Sax Guy and friends. The break-out upbeat hit of Eurovision 2017 has been attracting more and more views. Only a week after the grand final, “Hey Mamma” was getting more daily views than “Amar Pelos Dois”, slowly but surely eating into the winner’s lead.

“Hey Mamma” now has over 8.55 million views, compared to “Amar Pelos Dois” on 8.54 million.

But this isn’t so unusual. As past years have shown us, the winning song isn’t always the one people want to repeatedly listen to in the months after Eurovision.

The most viewed video from 2011 is Eric Saade’s aptly named “Popular”. The song that only placed third in Düsseldorf is currently sitting on 2.97 million views, while the winning song “Running Scared” has 2.71 million.

Likewise, the most popular video from the 2016 grand final is televote winner Sergey Lazarev with “You Are the Only One” on 19.9 million views. Overall winner Jamala follows behind on 16.03 million views.

And of course, winning Eurovision is all about the impact a song makes at the grand final. Sometimes the winning song is like “Euphoria”, an enduring pop hit that is still played years later. Other times the winning song might not have a strong afterlife, but it captures a special moment at the final.

Eurovision 2017 – grand final video YouTube views

One of the biggest surprises in the overall list of YouTube views is Spain in sixth place with 2.13 million views. “Do It For Your Lover” notoriously placed last in Kyiv, so why the YouTube popularity?

Well, most of those views happened in the first week, when Eurofans were repeatedly enjoying the drama of Manel’s unfortunate bum note in the live performance.

Robyn Gallagher

Robyn Gallagher contributed this report from New Zealand. You can follow Robyn on Twitter @robynesc. Keep up with the latest Eurovision news and gossip by liking our Facebook page and by following the team on Twitter @wiwibloggs.

Who would’ve thought? Keep in mind that this is also the best-selling song from the contest this year… it’s truly remarkable for a Moldovan act! The public went crazy for Hey Mamma here in Italy, by the way!

I loved both, Salvador and the Sunstroke Project, and voted for both too commencing from semis. Both deserved their sudden fame and I hope both will capitalize on it, in whatever categories and aspects of life that they consider meaningful. A musician life is quite hard and seldom prosperous so let’s be happy for the folks who worked hard to bring the right momentum to their lives.

When people have not time to listen to music, you go back to your childhood days and you listen on repeat this kind of bubble gum meaningless pop that serves as entertaining piece of … whatever … apparently it works … this was worthy of a Phd Thesis but …. ain’t nobody got time to wanting to understand that either …

Many people in the Americas (myself included) watch the pre-contest official music video rather than the Grand Final video, because it is vastly easier to do so. Other people watch the alternate video because they like it more, or they dislike the CGI at the end of the Grand Final video. The views add up.

In the same vein, Francesco’s full video for the full version of Occidentali’s Karma has well over 100m views.

I thought there was a massive Armenian diaspora of several billion people and that is the only reason why they normally finish well at Eurovision. Couldn’t be that in previous years they’ve just had good songs and this one was a bit of dud?

Salvador got the 8m views only because he won and he got all the spotlight, even people who dont follow esc clicked the video out of curiosity to see who was the winner
Moldova’s 8mviews are a lot more impressive, cause they managed to get them just by giving a goog fun performance

,,, but a good performance does not mean that it’s a good song … the Moldovan entry became nothing but the “let me forget about my depressive life and pretend everything is fine” moment … and in that sense is has worked the same way a clown can entertain us all by throwing pies against someone else’s face … but where is the music in that?

Oh dear Charles (yawn), you’re the one who can’t handle the fact that people might just enjoy something which you’ve dismissed. So now we need psychiatrists. Is there no end to your snobbish judgements? I don’t need you, or the police, or a psychiatrist to tell me what I should and should not like. Salvador won the battle, but Sunstroke won the war.

One thing is disliking the winning song. This is perfectly normal. What is not normall is creating a parallel universe where people are desperately trying to find other so-called “real” winners and attacking anyone that actually like the winning song. Charles is right in pointing that out.

However Charles is the first one who will comment whenever someone has something positive to say about the other acts. And calls them stupid for liking them. As if Salvador is some sort of God that needs to be praised. Charles should realise not liking Salvador isn’t a crime and should stop going on the defence.
There is a difference between liking an artist and mocking others for not liking the same artist.

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